


overboard

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Family Bonding, M/M, Prompt Fill, Scenes of Mortal Peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Prompt: "Trust me, it’ll work.”Lee suggests a boat trip as a bonding experience between himself and his partner's siblings. The adventure does not quite go as expected.





	overboard

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last of my prompt fills from this round! Thank you so very much to everyone who sent in prompts! I will be back to working on Superbloom in short order (as in, hopefully tomorrow). 
> 
> Just a quick warning, there's a brief mention of vomiting in this story, but it is not graphic.

At first, the boat trip had seemed like a good idea.

“A bonding experience,” Lee had called it. Gaara had to admit, Lee and his siblings could do with some bonding. Temari and Kankuro were still wary of Lee and his newfound role in Gaara’s life. They regarded him with guarded optimism, cautiously welcoming him into their circle, though not quite warmly yet.

It had been Lee who suggested boating. They had passed through the harbor on a detour through Wave Country, on their way back to Suna from Konoha. 

“I have been on boat trips with Gai-sensei a number of times!” he had declared, his voice bright with enthusiasm. 

“Sounds miserable,” Kankuro had said, before Temari shushed him. 

“I’m not a strong swimmer,” Gaara had said. “None of us are.”

“Not to worry!” Lee had reassured them. “We will be on top of the water, not in it!”

“He’s crazy,” Kankuro had whispered, but Gaara cut him off with a warning look. 

Reluctantly, they had all agreed. The boatman, Yuuto, had welcomed them onto his boat cautiously, not accustomed to transporting shinobi. 

The voyage was intended to be short, just a quick jaunt to a nearby island and back, with a stop for lunch and fishing along the way. The first leg of the journey had gone smoothly, save for a brief bout of seasickness on Gaara’s part (corrected easily enough by chewing on some ginger root, a thoughtful and oddly prescient gesture by Lee). Kankuro had caught an excessively large fish, which he had crowed and bragged about, strutting across the deck until Temari made him toss it back overboard, to his great dismay. 

It was on the return journey that things took a turn for the worse. 

Throughout their lunch, menacing black clouds had gathered on the horizon. Yuuto kept glancing at them, a worried expression on his weathered face. He had ended up cutting their meal short, hustling the four of them back onto the boat. 

“Storm’s coming,” he had said warningly. 

“Do you think we should wait it out?” Temari had asked, nervously palming her fan. 

“I reckon I can get us back before the worst of it hits,” Yuuto had promised.

He had been wrong. 

The wind had picked up, pushing the clouds frantically across the sky. By the time they were halfway to the mainland, the sky opened up and rain bucketed down onto them. Gusts of wind tore across the deck. The tiny boat pitched and yawed with the force of the waves. 

With a particularly powerful gust of wind, Gaara was blown halfway across the slippery deck. Lee grabbed him by the sash, stabilizing the two of them against a railing. 

“Are you okay?” Lee yelled over the howling of the wind.

“Thanks to you,” Gaara replied with a small smile, though his eyes were wide, fixated on the chaos around them. 

As the wind blew harder, Kankuro grabbed onto the mast of the main sail to stay upright. Temari wrapped one arm around the mast of the shorter sail at the front of the boat. Yuuto, too, was hanging on for dear life, frantically and futilely working the rudder.

The boat’s prow crashed through a massive wave just as a gust of wind struck the main sail.

“Look out!” Yuuto shouted, but it was too late; his voice was lost to the wind. 

The main sail whipped around, one of the bamboo spars catching Kankuro across the midsection. He lost his grip on the mast, thrown sideways. One of the sheets of the sail caught on one of Karasu’s many blades, tearing the fabric from end to end with a terrifying ripping noise. 

Kankuro stumbled, his hands scrabbling on the wet railing. The sail was blown back again, the bottom half of it now flapping wildly in the wind, unmoored from the rest. The spar plowed into Kankuro’s side. His feet left the deck. There was a blur of black, a cut-off scream. He toppled into the air, over the railing, and into the thrashing waves below.

“Kankuro!” Temari shrieked, shrill and bloodcurdling. She unhitched her fan from her back. 

Weak chakra threads lashed at the side of the boat but failed to gain purchase. Kankuro’s head submerged. 

Temari howled, unfurling her fan. The lashing of the rain caught the paper and tore it to shreds, leaving behind nothing but useless sticks of wood.

“Gaara, do something!” she yelled.

Gaara’s first thought was that a drowning person looked nothing like he expected. Kankuro’s hands did not break the water. He did not scream to be rescued. When his head broke the surface he barely gasped for breath, his head tipped back, eyes glassy. His face paint was all washed away; he looked impossibly young and vulnerable. 

Gaara sent a lariat of sand crashing down towards the water. It began to dissolve before it even hit the surface, assaulted on either side by sea and sky. He sent down another, and another, each falling uselessly into the depths of the ocean. 

It was hopeless, and it left him with only one choice. Gaara let his eyes roll back in his head, preparing to draw on Shukaku’s chakra.

“Don’t!” Temari shrilled. “If you let him take over, he could capsize the whole boat.”

Gaara paused, bringing his gaze back down to watch her.

“What other choice is there?” he growled.

“Don’t worry,” Lee said, throwing one foot over the lower railing. “I’ll get him.”

“What are you doing?” Gaara shouted, grabbing Lee by the neck of his jumpsuit. 

Lee turned around, cupping Gaara’s face in both his hands and tearing his eyes away from the sight of the black figure struggling below. 

“Do you trust me?” Lee said seriously, the wind grabbing at his words and tearing them asunder.

“With my life.”

“Then trust me with this. I promise, it will work.”

Lee pressed a kiss to Gaara’s damp forehead, then turned and dove overboard.

“What the hell is he doing?” Temari cried.

Gaara turned to look at her, but found he could not answer.

Thunder cracked overhead, startling him. He looked down into the roiling waves. Lee was making quick progress towards Kankuro’s bobbing form, his green suit and orange leg warmers bright against the grey water. 

Just as Lee reached for him, Kankuro’s head went under. 

He did not resurface. 

Lee didn’t stop for a moment. He dove down into the waves as well. 

For an interminable moment, nothing happened. The waves crashed, white foam cresting the gunwhale. Thunder rolled and clapped overhead. The deck of the boat heaved. Gaara’s white knuckles slid along the railing, pelted by rain. 

Gaara looked at Temari in alarm. She stared back at him, her face white. Rain traced down her cheeks, intermingled with salt spray and tears. 

“I’m going in,” he said, unshouldering his gourd.

“No!”

There was a _thud_ against the side of the boat. Temari screamed. 

Gaara looked over the railing and saw Lee, his bare fingers gripping the sideboards, a limp figure strapped to his back with bandages, climbing his way to the deck. His leg warmers were gone and his hair was slicked to his forehead with seawater, but his teeth were gritted with determination. 

When he reached the railing, Gaara and Temari grabbed him by each arm and hauled him back on board. Lee hastily unwrapped Kankuro’s limp body from his back, like some perverse inversion of the Primary Lotus, depositing him to the deck of the boat with a wet _thump_.

Temari rolled Kankuro onto his back, fingers seeking his neck to find a pulse. Gaara held his brother’s body steady, a hand over his mouth to check for breath; Kankuro was still and cold from the frigid water.

Temari looked at Gaara, the whites of her eyes visible all the way around her irises. Gaara shook his head. 

“Is he…?” Lee asked quietly.

Temari pinched Kankuro’s nose between two sharp fingers, tilted his head back, and leaned forward to breathe air into his lungs. 

She exhaled into him once, watching his chest rise and fall. 

She pulled back. He did not stir.

She breathed into his mouth again. Nothing.

She sobbed audibly, but shook her head, interlacing her fingers on his chest. She began compressions, counting under her breath.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight-”

Kankuro coughed weakly. His eyelids fluttered.

Temari drew back. Gaara hastily rolled Kankuro to his side. His body spasmed and he vomited, saltwater spilling onto the deck.

Gaara placed a hand in front of Kankuro’s mouth and nose, his fingers ice-cold and numb. 

The faintest of breaths brushed across them.

“He’s breathing,” Gaara announced.

“Thank god,” Temari gasped. “Oh, thank god.” She grabbed Kankuro and dragged him to the mast at the front of the ship, anchoring him there with chakra threads and sodden bandages. She pulled his head into her lap, wiping the damp hair away from his forehead, her shoulders shaking with laughter or sobs. 

Meanwhile, the storm had barely abated. Peals of water still stung Gaara’s bare skin. 

“Yuuto-san,” Lee called, “are you able to get us back to shore?”

Yuuto shook his head, pointing at the torn sail, then gesturing to the rudder.

“Rudder’s snapped,” he said gravely. 

“Then I will take care of it,” Lee declared, his mouth set firmly.

“Lee, wait- ” Gaara started, but Lee had already vaulted the railing, plunging back into the churning water. 

Gaara could only stare as Lee took hold of the stern.

“Yuuto-san!” he shouted. “I cannot see well from down here, so I’ll need you to point the way.”

Yuuto stared at him with a furrowed brow, but then pointed off towards the west. 

There was a groan of creaking wood, barely audible over the crackle of thunder, but then the boat began to move in earnest. 

Gaara’s attention was torn between his injured brother at the prow, and his partner, apparently fully lost to insanity, pushing the boat through the water of his own resolve, the water splashing up behind him in mighty peaks as he kicked. 

In just a few minutes, they were clear of the worst of the storm. Sprinkles of gentle rain still fell, but the sky had cleared and the barest hints of sunlight poked through, warming Gaara’s cold skin. 

Moments later, the boat collided with the sandy shore. 

Temari hauled Kankuro onto land, where he promptly vomited up more water. Gaara followed them, closely followed by Yuuto.

“You did good, old girl,” Yuuto gruffed, patting the ship’s hull. 

Gaara begged to differ, but he said nothing, turning his attention instead to Kankuro, who was fully conscious, blinking salt from his eyes.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Kankuro grimaced.

“Coupla broken ribs, I think, but I’ll survive.” He looked over Gaara’s shoulders and his eyes grew wide.

Lee staggered onto shore and bent forward with his hands on his knees, panting.

“Whoo!” he exclaimed. “That was quite the workout! I am glad we all made it back safely!”

Kankuro’s mouth dropped open.

“Wait…” he said. “Was Eyebrows … _pushing_ the boat?” 

Lee stood up, giving him a bright smile and a thumbs up.

“Indeed!” He beamed. His teeth glinted in the pale sunshine. 

“Oh, man, I didn’t even realize he was still there,” Kankuro said. 

“Where the hell did you think he was?” Temari asked pointedly.

“I dunno, I guess I thought maybe you guys threw him overboard so his stupid leg weights wouldn’t capsize us.”

Gaara glared at his brother, but Lee just threw his head back and laughed heartily.

“Not quite! Although I did have to leave my weights behind when I pulled you back onto the ship,” he said, his voice a bit sorrowful. “Oh, well, the life of a friend is much more important than a material possession.”

 _Friend?_ Gaara saw Temari mouth. He glanced over at Lee, who was still grinning, although the slump of his shoulders belied his weariness. Gaara looked back at his sister and nodded minutely. 

She turned to Lee and gave him a wary smile.

“Hey,” she said, “apparently this idiot here forgot all his manners, but thank you. You saved Kankuro’s life.”

Lee puffed his chest out, brimming with pride.

“It was no trouble at all!” he exclaimed. “I only hope that our next boat trip will not go quite so poorly.”

Kankuro turned to stare at Gaara wide-eyed, then turned back to Lee, so fast that it must have twinged his ribs. He grabbed at his side.

“ _Next_ boat trip?” he gritted. “You really are crazy!”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for always torturing Kankuro in this kind of stuff. He just makes for a great victim of misfortune, I guess. I promise I'll make it up to him one day.


End file.
